A new player enters the liquid cooling scene

Fractal Design is best known for its computer cases, though it also offers products like power supplies, case fans, and various accessories. One thing that's been noticeably absent from its catalog, however, is liquid cooling. That is, until now. Fractal Design made its intentions of entering the liquid market known earlier this year, and today those plans become a reality with the new Kelvin T12, S24, and S36 coolers.

New SSD line starts at $100

Samsung's 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology is no longer reserved for just its premium solid state drives (SSDs). With the introduction of its affordable 850 Evo SSD family, mainstream customers now have access to the same technology that was previously only found in Samsung's 850 Pro line released earlier this year. What that ultimately means for consumers is access to SSDs that are presumably more reliable and less expensive.

No passwords!

Granted, Maximum PC readers are not the type to mind having to grapple with some ornery hardware every once in a while — ah, the thrill of taming such devices — but it’s no fun when an entire device class is a royal pain the derriere. One such class of devices is that of wireless networking equipment.

Sorry Shakespeare, but GPU family names are kinda important

Those next-gen AMD GPU rumors are coming in thick and fast. Late last month, we had someone on Chinese tech forum ChipHell post some tantalizing performance numbers that they claimed belonged to an upcoming (presumably a R9 300 series) graphics card and now we have a new report that is questioning something that the tech media has taken for granted until now — the codename of AMD’s next-gen GPU family.

Examining the lifespan of SSDs

Solid state storage (SSD) drives are relative newcomers to the storage scene compared to media like mechanical hard disk drives. So the question remains, are SSDs reliable? Barring a time machine and enough plutonium to keep it running, it's a tough question to answer. In the absence of a DoLorean equipped to race back and forth in time, the next best way to test SSDs for endurance is to bombard them with writes. Turns out such a test is taking place with two SSDs having survived 2 petabytes of write tests so far.

Minimum and recommeded specs for Dying Light

If you're planning to play Dying Light when it releases to the public next month, hopefully you were able to take advantage of the various Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and upgrade your PC. Publisher Warner Bros. Entertainment posted the minimum and recommended specs of Dying Light on Steam -- they're fairly heavy, especially the recommended portion, which calls for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card.

Early look at Asus' upcoming graphics card

Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) says that online reviews of its new Matrix Platinum GTX 980 graphics card will hit the web next week, though in the meantime, it's providing a couple of press photos for an early look. The graphics card maker also revealed some specs about the high-end card, including the fact that it boasts a custom PCB with a 14-phase Super Alloy Power VRM and Black Metallic capacitors.

Back to basics

We fancy ourselves to be keyboard snobs these days, and Cherry is partially responsible for that. After all, Cherry's MX key switches are found on a number of mechanical keyboards, which helped revitalize a somewhat stagnant market for planks. So, it was with (short lived) interest when we saw Cherry introduce a new wireless keyboard and mouse combo (JD-0700EU-2) intended for the workplace.

Razer's feeling the blues

Razer today unveiled its "Razer Classic" product line consisting of five exclusive products that can only be purchased from the company's website. These aren't new peripherals, but a collection of "tried and true" devices that have each been given retro blue backlighting as a throwback to Razer's early days in the gaming peripheral market. The goal is to offer "contemporary performance, but with a subtle nostalgic vibe," the company says.